State of the art in development of integrated testing strategies for the replacement on animals in toxicity testing

The newly published book 'In Vitro Toxicology Systems'(Springer, New York 2014) presents the most recent update on the state of in vitro toxicology science, covering the most important issues and considerations needed to develop integrated testing strategy for the replacement of animals in toxicity testing regimes.

Several chapters have been co-authored by scientists of the JRC's EURL ECVAM (the EU Reference Laboratory for Alternatives to Animal Testing) and the JRC-IHCP Nanobiosciences Unit. The editors of the book, Anna Bal-Price (EURL ECVAM) and Paul Jennings (Innsbruck Medical University) also wrote the Preface; the Foreword is by prof. Michael Balls, the first head of ECVAM.

The volume includes sections on in vitro models for systemic organ toxicity, neurotoxicity, sensory organs, immunotoxicity and reproductive toxicity and addresses how stem cells may be used going forward. The book also tackles difficult areas of toxicology such as carcinogenicity and nanotoxicology, with additional chapters dedicated to kinetics, metabolism, and in vitro in vivo extrapolation. The book also addresses biological processes such as stress response pathways and mechanistic biomarkers and how these can be uncovered and measured using high content approaches.

In Vitro Toxicology Systems is addressed to students, scientists, and regulators working in the field of chemical safety assessment but also to a wider scientific audience.

The publisher offers for free download the Preface by the co-editors, the Table of Contents and sample pages from Chapter 2.